Though they are not injured, both were given the night off at Denver with the Suns in the midst of their first back-to-back-to-back set of the season. The Suns return home Wednesday night for a game against Atlanta at US Airways Center, where the Suns are only 5-7 this season.

"They're run down," Suns coach Alvin Gentry said. "I just don't feel that it's necessary to stick them out there with the possibility of an injury or something. They've played a lot of minutes. We've asked Grant to do a lot of things defensively. And obviously we've asked Steve to do a lot of things offensively.

"We just feel like, at this stage, why risk putting them out there. We'll just let them recover today and we have a game tomorrow."

Gentry said he consulted with head athletic trainer Aaron Nelson and both players. Nash, 38, and Hill, 39, are among the league's oldest five players. Since the schedule came out, Gentry has talked about the possibility of sitting out veterans for a stretch such as this, which includes four games in five nights.

Gentry started Michael Redd at shooting guard, moved Jared Dudley to small forward and Ronnie Price at point guard. Gentry had turned to Price to play backup point in the second half of the previous two games over Sebastian Telfair.

"I like the rotations we've had," Gentry said of starting Price.

"Sebastian has come in and gotten after the ball."

Nash and Hill each had missed one other game this season -- a 113-110 loss to New Jersey.

Lamenting Monday

Nothing about Gentry's perspective changed after reviewing how the Suns went from having a 12-point lead to trailing by 10 in a 12-minute second-half span of Monday night's loss at Golden State.

It began with David Lee's 15-point third quarter, much of which came against Marcin Gortat. Lee finished with 28 points.

"You've just got to guard him," Gentry said. "That's not a team that you can run around and double, because they're the best 3-point-shooting team in the league."

Gortat tied a career high with 25 points, but the Suns' 4-1 run was halted. Nash called the Warriors' 17 second-chance points in the first half and the Suns' second-half defensive letdown "inexcusable."

Said Gentry: "It was really disappointing, because we had a little momentum going. To tell you the truth, if you look at the teams in the West, there's no one running away with this thing. Oklahoma City has 21 wins. You get past the Clippers, who have 17, and there is a logjam to the bottom of the conference. We had four home losses that are awful. You take those and make them wins and we have 16 wins."

The Suns have home losses to New Orleans, New Jersey, Toronto and Cleveland this season.

Free throws

Nash, on the Suns' identity: "We're a pick-and-roll team. We're a jump-shooting team. We don't have much of a post-up game. Our defense has been pretty good. We just can't rebound, and it's killing us."

Denver coach George Karl, on Nash: "Their rhythm is mostly Nash ... Gortat and Nash have developed a top-five pick-and-roll offense."

Only Chicago, Indiana and Oklahoma City have played fewer home games this season than the Suns. The Suns have not had a losing home record since 2003-04, when the roster and payroll were stripped to set up the off-season that landed Nash in free agency.

The Suns are 0-6 against Texas. The Suns don't play Dallas (0-3), Houston (0-3) or San Antonio (0-1) again until March.